As a breed, toddlers and preschoolers have some… interesting ideas about fashion. A la Portlandia, rather than “put a bird on it,” think, wear rain boots with it or put a construction hat on it or put fairy wings on it. Outrageousness, thy name is little kid self-styling. Most of Saskia’s clothing has been handed down (our friends rock; little girls get a lot of clothes). Many of the pieces she wears most came from a blue-eyed blondie so instantly nothing looks the same on our dark-haired, dark-eyed gal.
It’s also true that our gal has her own sense of style. And that her parents are pretty complacent (read, don’t make their kids’ clothing choices a priority) about what she wears. It’s additionally true that her mama has been known to dress her child in a way that makes other people think the child chose—mismatched stripes anyone?
What surprises me sometimes though, is that she really does seem a sense of personal style, and that it’s at times so, cool. It’s almost prescient. I can see her being one of those young women you do a double take to check out what she’s put together. Mostly due to my neglect, her loose, messy ponytails are sported more than the neat and tight ones, and sometimes they look… intentional. A few weeks back, I found her at her pal Arella’s house wearing Arella’s ballet dress and her cowboy boots. With her loose (read, hair unkempt but not disastrously so) ponytail, she looked like Vogue could show up right then.
Two things got me thinking about this more, though.
First off, before you think I am overly worried about her style as a negative, hear me: I love her aesthetic. I am in awe of it, even. No kidding. My friend, Naomi, wrote a guest post on Lauren’s blog, which is about style in a place where comfort shoes reign. Naomi is an inveterate thrift shopper. She makes the point that her original inspiration to try her hand at thrifting due to wanting to emulate Molly Ringwald’s style in Pretty In Pink. I remember the giant thrift shop in my Philadelphia school’s neighborhood, Germantown. We mostly ferreted the most torn up T’s. Still, we thought they were cool. I wouldn’t mind at all if my gal followed Naomi in thrifting or style footsteps (she’s a terrific writer, too).
What got me thinking was seeing this photo of Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia at her first professional modeling shoot, Versace, natch. She is, in case you can’t tell, ten. I saw the photo on People magazine (longtime subscriber) and I couldn’t stop staring. Sure, she’s a gorgeous girl, even when wearing kid clothing or especially when wearing kid clothing. Yes, I wondered about whether I as a mother would ever let my ten year-old into such adult waters filled with female objectification (um, no). But it was the Molly Ringwald at 16 v. Kaia Gerber at ten mash-up in my mind’s eye that got me riled up; it’s the photoshopped, the kid wearing adult clothes in some iconic way and the fact that so many of our clothing choices are such that kids and adults (read, girls and women) almost—on some fashionista-scale—are going for the same thing: so many styles that crossover from babies to women, aspirations to body type that resembles pre-adolescence.
And then, I noted, when the Disney Channel was playing the other day, how the supposed-teenybopper style of some of those girls in the vapid shows are neither Saskia and her pals nor Molly and hers; they are bland approximations of offhanded cute. You are not supposed to be able to procure that look at a thrift store. You could do maybe at Target or whether they sell the Hannah Montana style of the moment (I have no idea). So, I added to my frustration that the role models in the media are so heavily branded and made into purchasable commodities that personal style is harder to defend these days, maybe. Obviously, though, I wanted to look like Laurie Partridge, so take this last part with the grain of salt I’ve already accounted for here. But only a grain: the branding and photoshopping and product placements and such, well, wow. Media literacy conversations, here we come.
